Young Mom Says Titanic Stars Saved Her Life

By: Mackenzie Wright | January 26, 2019

One young mother was tearfully thankful to the stars of the Academy Award-winning film, 'Titanic'. She appeared on a British talk show and says if it hadn't been for them, she wouldn't be here today.

Kate Winslet, with the help of her former on-screen lover Leonardo Di Caprio, raised more than $1 million to help pay for her cancer treatments.

Gemma Nuttall was 26 weeks pregnant in 2013, and she went for a routine scan. Instead of it being a happy occasion, the young mother-to-be got a devastating blow: she had a tumor on her ovaries. Tests proved it was an aggressive form of cancer.

Doctors wanted Nuttall to abort her pregnancy and start a course of treatment that could have saved her life. Nuttall could not bear to give up her child.

"I went home and I told my partner 'I can't get rid of her'," she recalls. "She saved my life, she was the reason my cancer had been discovered. I felt I had to repay the favor."

After giving birth to her baby, Gemma, via C-section, Nuttall immediately had the tumor surgically removed and began treatment. Doctors said there was little they could do for her. The cancer had spread. They gave her six months to live.

"I was told I needed to make a will and put things in place for Penelope when I was gone," she recalls. "I felt written off completely. But my mum thought 'I'm not having this. I'm not going to let my daughter die'."

Nuttall and her mother, Helen Sproates, did some research and learned about immunotherapy, and how there has been some success in it treating cancer patients. The treatment was available in Germany, but would be expensive. It cost nearly $100,000 per treatment session, and Nuttall would need six sessions.

The family could only come up with enough money to cover one session, and even that involved Sproates selling her house. Mom and daughter set up a fundraiser in hopes of raising the money so Nuttall could complete the treatment.

As luck would have it, one famous person got wind of their campaign: Kate Winslet.

Winslet was touched by Nuttall's story and offered to help. She called her old friend, former 'Titanic' co-star Leo Di Caprio, and asked if he would join her in helping him. Through Di Caprio's charitable foundation, the two auctioned off 'A Dinner with Jack and Rose', their characters from the popular film.

They ended up auctioning off three separate dinners, and raised more than $1.3 million to put towards Nuttall's treatments.

"They raised so much they have been able to donate money to other charities too. They saved my daughter," said Sproates.

Gemma is in recovery and, as it stands now, is cleared of cancer. She's enjoying being a mother to Gemma, and is eternally grateful to Winslet and Di Caprio for their help.

"I can't thank Kate enough. Without her donations, and the public's, my story would be very different. We thought it was a wind-up, but then she called and I realized she was serious," said Nuttall.

"I told her I could never thank her enough and she told me not to be daft. She said she had read about my story online, that she had three kids of her own and had thought about what she would be like in that position," Nuttall concluded.